


Do you breathe better now?

by orphan_account



Series: Robbe and Sander getting on with it [6]
Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Breakup, Finding, First Love, Heartache, M/M, Pining, Remorse, Sadness, Searching, True Love, love letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 13:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Series 3 episode 9, clip 12Robbe is moving on from Sander.Until he recieves a love letter he can't ignore.A reworking of the episode 9 ending "you are not alone" moment set in the WTFock universe.
Relationships: Robbe Ijzermans/Sander Driesen, Robbe/Sander
Series: Robbe and Sander getting on with it [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537516
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93





	Do you breathe better now?

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from a wonderful song by gabrielle (skam queen), tenker på deg

Robbe has walked these streets a thousand times. Or rather the old Robbe has. Because every time he comes down here now, he’s a new, different version of himself.

But he knows the way instinctively, that’s the only link he has with who he used to be. Everything else about him has changed.

He is threading his way through the back streets to the park by the harbour where he always used to hang out with the boys. He has decided to go there as it is the only place left he can think - everywhere else is tainted by recent memories.

Sure, he could stay in his flat. But there, lying in his room, he can’t help about think of those precious afternoons when Sander used to lie next to him, and they would talk about everything and nothing, infinity and each other. They had all the time back then, and they were so happy in their perfect, unhurt, fledgling innocence, before the world came in and chewed them up.

He couldn’t sit in the living room either, because then one of his flatmates would come in and talk to him. In the recent weeks Robbe has learned to talk to people and has grown to love these friends for the help they have given him. But he doesn’t want to answer questions he can’t answer any more. He feels they pity him, having had so much happiness with Sander snatched away before he could begin to enjoy it. Or maybe they hate him, secretly, for pushing Sander away. But didn’t he deserve it?

Robbe rounds the corners of the streets one by one. He passes by the cafe where he that night had begun, the one that ended with that magical, ethereal kiss in the swimming pool. And where that other night had ended, the evening his sweet, life-giving kisses with his boyfriend were repaid with punches and kicks and streams of blood. 

Robbe barely thinks about that now, because he has come to accept himself and the trials that are inevitably going to come with it. It will be 2020 in just a few weeks, but he knows what hate is like, and he knows it is out there, and there for him. But he has learned to be brave and know he has to fight this battle. He has no choice. But he knows - he is gay, and he is content.

But he isn’t happy. He knew, somehow, that this was all inside of him somewhere. But Sander had brought it all to the surface. And Robbe hadn’t minded that, while he could bask in the light of his love. But now Sander was gone from his life, and he was lost, cold and stranded.

He doesn’t know where Sander is now, but he knows that he could never be more lost to him. After he had seen him kissing Britt, Robbe had eventually let him apologise and they had reunited. But it hadn’t been the same, and Sander was withdrawn and quiet, and wanted to spend time on his own. It wasn’t like those heady days of pleasure at the start. Robbe had an inkling that Sander might have been depressed, but, Robbe thought as Sander took time away from him, he clearly doesn’t want to share that with me. And if he doesn’t want to make the effort, then neither do I.

And distance set in between them, first the space of an unsaid I love you, then afternoons on their own, then it stretched to spaces of days at a time. Maybe Robbe had just been a phase for Sander, despite what he had said. But what was certain was that though they were attracted to each other, and though it seemed so easy between them, they weren’t meant to be. Why this had to be so, Robbe didn’t know. It seemed so harsh. But Robbe was learning to live with a life without Sander.

Nobody is out on the streets. It is a cold winter afternoon and the wind is biting at Robbe’s face as he reached the waterfront. Here he sat with the bros when it had still been warm and balmy, and though everything was falling apart around him, he would have rather have kept a lid on everything than let it all spill out and get messy. But now they all know about what had happened, and it was amazing that one simple revelation could have had the effect it did. Robbe found himself being more honest and open with everyone, and he felt guilt slip away from all areas of his life, and he began to look situations straight in the eye instead of avoiding them. He had made friends with Noor, and they still got on well, in fact she is going to take him to have his first tattoo done next week. He had more room in his cleaned-out heart for his mum, and found they both gained in strength in his support of her. Even things with his dad had levelled. And finally, he was enjoying spending time with his bros again.

Robbe doesn’t stay long by the water, needing to get home and start getting things ready for the Christmas party he and his flatmates are hosting tomorrow. Once the idea of a party with everyone he knew apart from Sander made Robbe feel anchorless and dizzy, but he was finding more and more fulfilment in his friendships, and he didn’t care if people gossiped about him and what he did to Britt’s ex-boyfriend. Because what Britt’s ex-boyfriend had done for him… well, on the whole, he was a better, more contented person now. And he supposed he had to thank him for that.

Even if he had left his heart misshapen and broken.

Robbe breathes in an icy glug of the fresh, salty air, feeling it cleanse him, and makes for home. He likes to take a circular walk, and he kind of likes the fact that the way home takes him past Sander’s house. He likes to think he can walk past it and feel that he is over him, pretend that he feels nothing at all. In truth, it would be a while before he felt nothing walking down this street. But Robbe continues to do it anyway, for practice, and because there is still that secret part of him that longs to see him, and dreams of him running out of his front door to greet him and pull him inside. Robbe had to stop himself dreaming like this. And sure enough, when he walks past the house now, there is no blonde boy running up to greet him. This was real life, thinks Robbe, and it has to go on.

Shaken with thoughts of Sander and feeling the cold chilling him, Robbe decides to make a beeline for home. He arrives at the end of the street and stands waiting at the crossing, staring emptily at the car park and the backs of the buildings over the road in front of him. This car park is a favourite with graffiti artists and the concrete walls are always changing their stripes, with new artwork appearing for a few weeks at a time before being covered over with something else. They always drew Robbe’s eye and he likes looking for the really cool ones. And there is a new one, huge, right in front of where Robbe is standing on the opposite side of the street. And it takes Robbe a moment or two to work out why the bright image seems uncannily familiar.

Then he realises. He is staring at a two metre high picture of his own face. He feels a hot rush of confusion and embarrassment and quickly looks away. But looking back, there it still is. It couldn’t be anyone else. Against a background of intense rainbow colours, and seeming to burst out of the bricks in the wall, which fracture away in a heart shape, is his face, and his eyes, staring at him. For a few seconds, Robbe is incredulous, amazed at how it got there.

Then it hits him like a punch in the gut, and he remembers that afternoon, so many weeks ago. The lights change, allowing Robbe to cross the road, but he stands frozen to the spot. His bed, which he has tried to purge of Sander, was that afternoon their den, where they had explored one another, so cosily wrapped up in their love. And Sander had shown him his sketch for a mural based on Robbe’s face. Robbe had laughed it off and given Sander a kiss, flattered by his silly, if romantic, idea. But here it is, that memory, glaring him in the face and forcing him to confront it.

Sander had done it. Long after Robbe had thought it was all over between them, long since he had lost all hope, this little love note had been given to him again. But it isn’t secret or private this time, but on the side of a building for all to see. And it is good, too. And massive. It must have taken him hours. Sander had taken that shy sketch of his crush and turned it into a declaration. A declaration of love.

It had to be. What else could it mean? That picture was referenced in some of the happiest moments Robbe had ever had in his life. And Robbe can’t believe that Sander didn’t also love those lazy afternoons they had spent together, when the world had stopped turning. The picture had meant then, I like you. I think about you when we are not together. I see your face so often in my mind that I have sketched you in my book so you can be with me. The picture had been a little love letter. And here it is splashed over a wall for the whole of Antwerp to see, magnified hundreds of times. What had meant I like you back then now screams, Robbe, I love you.

Robbe feels tears spring into his eyes and a lump rise in his throat. He still loves me. Though we haven’t spoken. Though I have been uncaring. Though I didn’t want him - he has taken the time and the effort and the risk of arrest to write me this love letter, though I may never have seen it, and though I may never have cared. And something in Robbe’s tightly sewn-up heart unlocks, and hot waves of emotion course through his veins, feelings that he had tried to hold back and freeze over.

I love him.

It is so obvious to him. Like a flash of lightning it strikes him, wiping away his blindness. How could he have not realised? Yes, Sander had hurt him - but he had hurt Sander. Sander had made stupid mistakes - but that’s what they were, mistakes, Robbe had made them too and should have believed him when he apologised. Moments of their time together swim into his mind, from their first secretive looks to their most passionate embraces, and suddenly he feels empty without him. He loves Sander, and he had always loved Sander, though he hadn’t always known it. And suddenly, Robbe realised, if he hadn’t known, then Sander hadn’t known. And if Sander on this wall is telling him he loves him, he needs to go and tell it right back in that stupid, handsome face of his. Now. 

Robbe turns and runs back up the road he had just walked down, already once more a different person. But this person feels a lot more real and true - this person is going to run into his lover’s arms. He bolts up to Sander’s house and slams the buzzer, breaths coming thick and fast.

But there is no answer. Robbe buzzes again. Nothing.

How could he not be here? Does he not realise Robbe was coming to get him, so that they could start the rest of their lives together?

Robbe tries a few more times, looking up and down the quiet street as a panic begins to set in. He isn’t there. But if Robbe doesn’t find him, he is worried this feeling would go. He needs to make sure he isn’t going crazy. But, he realises with an ache, he also needs to put the boy he loves out of his misery. He is going to do anything he can now to make him happy. His life is no longer just his, in fact it hasn’t been just his for a long time now. He is part of Sander, and Sander is part of him.

But where could he be? Robbe grabs his phone from his pocket, wanting to text him. Where are you, Sander? But the last time they have texted was over a week ago, and after Robbe sends the text he remembers that the other boy has no idea how he now felt, and would probably not reply, at least not for a while. But this won’t wait. Then, in a flash of inspiration, he knew where he has to go, and starts to run the few blocks as fast as his legs will carry him, caring little about the traffic having to give way as he sprints across the roads. 

After a few minutes he is there, at the skate park. He has no idea whether Sander will be here, but if Robbe was taking walks to the harbour he could imagine this is where Sander would go. He begins striding across the grass crunchy with frost, heart beating wildly with the exercise and adrenalin.

But as he approaches the ramps, his heart sinks. He isn’t here. In fact, no one is here. It is the middle of December and ice is beginning to coat the ground. Robbe feels his stupidity like a sickness in his stomach. Of course, Sander wasn’t going to be there. He is probably out at the Christmas markets or something, with Britt.

And suddenly, it is all too much. Robbe had been right, Sander is never going to be more lost to him than he is now. Sander might love him, but how is Robbe to know whether he still wants him. The joy that has momentarily come into his life is just as quickly and cruelly snatched away. And Robbe can’t do anything else but scream.

He lets it all out in one heart-wrenching, soul-freeing roar. His pain, his hurt, especially bitter in the light of a love that he knows now could never be his. It feels so good. He shouts again, and gives his hurt a name.

Sander!

And Robbe sinks to the ground, head on his knees, choking on the tears the just won’t stop coming. He feels pathetic and helpless but there is nothing he can do, and he doesn’t care what anyone might think of him, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Robbe?

He remembered how sweet his name used to sound when formed by those lips and tongue he had not spent long enough kissing.

Robbe?

He remembered how Sander used to say it when Robbe was upset, and how Robbe had taken it for granted. If only he could hear it again.

Robbe?

But surely, he is hearing it again. Isn’t he?

Robbe looks up, though his vision swirls through his tears. He can’t see anyone. He has imagined it, and his loneliness redoubles and slaps him round the face. And all Robbe had wanted to do was to tell him he loved him.

But then something in his field of vision shifts, camouflaged black in the low afternoon light against the darkness of the skate ramps. Robbe looks round and blinks his vision clear. There is a bright white streak picked out against the dark background that reminds Robbe of one thing only, though he dares not let himself believe it. Then, as he watches, a black hood is removed to uncover a shock of white hair, that, as it tilts upwards, reveals a face that, while not spray-painted on a wall, has been just as visible in Robbe’s mind since the day he met him.

Robbe’s breath sticks in his throat and he freezes as he recognises Sander. Here he is, shrouded in black, and leaning lifelessly against the ramp a few metres away from him. Of course he was going to be here. Robbe, minutes ago so full of certainty and confidence, is now unsure what to do. But then he takes him in, and his sad, drawn look on his face, the light all gone from those ocean-coloured eyes. The idea that Robbe could have caused Sander to look or feel like this makes his heart swell with empathy and remorse and gives him the impulse to stand up. 

Suddenly his body isn’t his any more, he feels himself move, but all he can see or think or feel is Sander, and the next thing he knew he is holding his face in his hands. His skin is cold and has lost its shine. Robbe can see Sander’s eyes are rimmed red and drooping with lack of sleep, those gorgeous eyes he now keeps fixed on the ground. Robbe doesn’t know where to begin, how he could say a fraction of what he was feeling, how he could possibly start to make any of this better. But then out of nowhere words come to him, as if calling to them both from across the parallel universes.

Robbe leans up on his toes and wraps an arm around Sander’s neck, pulling his lips up to level with Sander’s ear, and he says those words with all the love he can muster.

You are not alone.


End file.
